20 ASCERTAIN-ASPERSIONS. The first gaineth skill in the Latin and Greek languages: as for the Arabian and other Oriental tongues, he rather makes sallies and incursions into them, than any solemn sitting before them.-FULLER, The Generall Artist. Sallust's character of Catiline, than whom there was never a greater artist in raising seditions, is this, that he had great eloquence and little wisdom.-HOBBES. A yellow ant in a nest of red ants, a butcher's dog in a foxhound kennel, a mouse in a beehive, all feel the effects of untimely intrusion. But far preferable their fate to that of the misguided artisan who, misled by sixpenny histories of England, and conceiving his country to have been united at the Heptarchy, goes forth from his native town to stitch freely within the sea-girt limits of Albion. Him the mayor, him the Aldermen, him the Recorder, him the Quarter Sessions worry.SYDNEY SMITH. Art is a serious business, most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.-GOETHE. I did ascertain you by my letters the privation of the Abbot of St. Bennett's of his monastery.-Duke of Suffolk to Cardinal Wolsey. As the spice called Cinnamon constitutes the wealth of Ceylon, great pains are taken to ascertain its qualities and propagate its choicest kinds. The value of the different bundles can only be ascertained by tasting, an office which devolves upon the medical men of the settlement, who are employed several days together in chewing Cinnamon. PERCIVAL's Ceylon, 1803. Aspersions. Once used in its literal meaning of sprinklings now only in the figurative sense of blame and defamation. : No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall SHAKSPEARE, Tempest, iv. 1. ASSASSINATE-ASSIZE. 21 The book of Job and many places of the prophets have great aspersions of natural philosophy.-BACON. nature. He [Sir Robert Walpole] was a good-natured man who had seen nothing for thirty years but the worst parts of human He was familiar with the malice of kind, and the perfidy of honourable people. No stain of treachery, of ingratitude, or of cruelty, rests on his memory: factious hatred, whilst flinging on his name every other foul aspersion, was compelled to own that he was not a man of blood. It was then a rare and honourable distinction.-MACAULAY. Assassinate. To assail unawares now, only with the result of death. Such usage as your honourable Lords Who durst not with their whole united powers, In fight withstand me, single and unarmed. MILTON, Paradise Lost. The Syrian king, who to surprise One man, assassin-like, had levied war War unproclaimed.-MILTON, Paradise Lost. The government [of Russia] is despotic, tempered by assassination.-TALLEYRAND. Assise. To establish. In Chaucer assise' means a situation: : now, a session, or sitting. The twelve signs stand assised, That each of them in his partie, Hath his climate to justifie.-Gower. They are too young, too few and too deficient for such civilized machinery at present. I cannot come to serve upon the jury, the waters of the Hawksbury are out and I have a mile to swim; the kangaroos will break into my corn; the convicts have robbed me; my little boy has been bitten by an ornithorynchus paradoxus; I have sent a man fifty miles with a sack of flour to buy a coat for the Assizes, and he has not returned.-SYDNEY SMITH (1822). Assure. To betroth. The day of their assuring drew near.-PEMBROKE'S Arcadia. 22 ASSURE-ASTROLOGY. This drudge or diviner laid claim to me, called me Dromio, swore I was assured to her.-SHAKSPEARE, Comedy of Errors, iii. 2. Modern meaning, to assert positively. A runaway couple were married at Gretna Green. The Smith demanded five guineas. How is this?' said the Bridegroom, 'the gentleman you last married assured me he only gave you a guinea.' 'True,' said the Smith, 'but he was an Irishman. I have married him six times; you I have never seen before.'— LYTTON. Astonish. Once, like 'amaze,' to confound or bewilder now used in the modified sense of 'surprise.' Th' associates and co-partners in our loss Lie thus astonish'd in th' oblivious pool.-MILTON. The fatal trespass done by Eve, amaz'd, Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill Ran through his veins, and all his joints relax'd. MILTON, Paradise Lost. Astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.—BURKE. This work of Dr. Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Gulliver felt when he first landed in Brobdignag and saw corn as high as the oaks in Windsor forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book and every component part of it is on a gigantic scale.-MACAULAY, Life of Burleigh, And as to that part of Astrology he mentions, and those other parts of mathematics, the great Cæsar was so skilful that he reformed the year.-JOHN EVELYN. There was a time when the most powerful of human intellects were deluded by the gibberish of the Astrologer and the Alchemist, and just so there was a time when the most enlightened and virtuous statesmen thought it the first duty of a government to persecute heretics, to found monasteries, to make war on Saracens. But time advances, facts accumulate, doubts arise, faint glimpses of truth begin to appear, and shine more and more unto the perfect day.—MACAULAY. Old wise astronomers And their sayings I repreve not.-GOWER. The science of Astronomy, which principal is of clergy, to deem between wo and well.-GOWER. I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear or Charles' Wain, or the place of any star. I guess at Venus only by her brightness, and if the sun on some particular morn were to make his first appearance in the west, I verily believe that, while all the world were gasping in apprehension about me, I alone should stand unterrified from sheer incuriosity and want of observation.-C. LAMB. Atone. Formerly, to reconcile now, to make amends for. All kindness to the Sire of Gods, and our good mother Queen I have been atoning two most wrangling neighbours.BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. I have given my readers an account of a set of merry fellows who are passing their summer together in the country. They are provided with a great house where there is not only a convenient apartment provided for each person, but a large Infirmary for the reception of such as are any way indisposed or out of humour. On Saturday we received many excuses from persons who found themselves in an unsociable temper, but who atoned for it by voluntarily shutting themselves up. Upon going abroad I observed that it was an easterly wind.— ADDISON. Attain. Once used of persons in the sense of overtaking. The Earl hoping to have overtaken the Scottish King and have given him battle, but not attaining him in time, sat down before the Castle of Aton.-BACON. 24 ATTEND-ATTORNEY. He [Byron] was born to all that men most covet and desire, but in every one of these eminent advantages there was mingled something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient, indeed, and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies which had attained a scandalous celebrity.-MACAULAY. Attend. 'wait on.' Once meant to wait for' as well as to I am attended at the Cypress grove. SHAKSPEARE, Two Gentlemen of Verona, v. 1. They had parted so much honesty among them, Or in their pearly shells at ease attend So spread upon a lake with upward eye A plump of fowl behold their foe on high: They close their trembling troop, and all attend On whom the rousing eagle will descend.-DRYDEN. The old Duchess of Marlborough has at last published her Memoirs. They are digested by one Hooke who wrote a Roman History, but from her materials which are so womanish that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and petticoat out of them.-HORACE WALPOLE. [It was Hooke who brought a Catholic Priest to attend the death bed of Pope, a proceeding which excited such bitter indignation in the infidel Lord Bolingbroke.-LORD DOVER.] Attorney. Once generally an agent for another : now only in matters of law. I am still Attorney'd at your service. SHAKSPEARE, Measure for Measure, v. I. Orlando. Then in mine own person, I die. The poor world is |